So I dressed today as I have been for the past several weekend days at the farm-- long johns & jeans, three pair of socks, boots, turtleneck, wool sweater, sweatshirt over that, down vest, barn coat, and the ever-popular fleece-lined wool ski cap. And gloves.
Unlike the past several work days at the farm, today I never took off a layer. I was the Michelin Tire Man all day, and, man, are my shoulders sore from tromping around trying to move inside all those layers.
Started out as a reasonably typical day... I arrived to do the usual turnout of horses, muck stalls, bang the ice out of water buckets, re-bed, put in evening hay, prep water buckets for evening filling, etc... but the BO (that's barn owner to the uninitiated) felt it was too miserable to bother getting them all out; by the time the last were out, the first would want back in, and who needed the hassle. So we opted to clean around them while in their stalls. Not too hard-- a little tempting hay thrown in a corner usually keeps them off your back long enough to muck around them.
Then we got to discussing the new horse that's coming in and where she'd go. BO brokered the purchase of new Morgan mare for a former boarder, good friend, who lost her last horse to Potomac Horse Fever in 2007. Boarder has been casually shopping horses, and this one sort of popped into BO's lap, so the horse has been bought and is arriving this week, maybe tomorrow.
Only problem is where to put her. All the stalls are full! We do have one double-stall that opens onto a small paddock (the Pony Paddock), but couldn't quite figure out a combo of horses that would get along well enough to stay inside together on these colder-than-hell nights (-3 last night), but also be mature enough to handle playing in the pony paddock. Pony paddock faces the road, so any baby horses who would be fence-testers are out-- we want no youngsters in the road.
So, some discussion of rearranging stalling and turnout patterns led to putting Roux and Celby out together in pasture 1 for a couple of hours while we cleaned stalls. I'm hoping to move Roux & Celby into the shed pasture come some decent weather. I think they'd get along well-- they're both in their 20's, both reliably mature (no fence-testing, no silly kid games, they'll walk together the long walk to the far pasture without acting up-- a definite advantage over the youngsters) both grumps, both my project horses. And they're stalled next to one-another, so they alrady have a passing acquaintance. We've talked about trying them together before, but the weather turned to shit, and you don't want to be mixing unfamiliar horses together on bad footing.
But this week's snow provided decent traction and safe enough conditions that we put them together in pasture 1 as a test. Roux was distraught to be separated from her usual herd leader, Scarlett, who is boss-hoss in Roux's usual turnout mix. (Roux is #2 in the herd, harassing the other two mares with great glee...she's the foreman-- doesn't want to be completely in charge, but gets a kick out of the power position of #2) So she ran up and down the fence line, snorting, looking at Scarlett in her stall, who was saying, uh, why are you out, and I'm in? Celby, thinking, finally, I got a chick! trotted right over to Roux, who showed him her butt and threatened a kick, all the while pacing up and down the fence line. Celby looked for all the world like he shrugged his shoulders (horses cannot shrug shoulders) and said whatever and meandered back to the gate to say, okay, there's nothing to eat, and it's cold out here, and she's weird. Can I come in now?
And so it went for 20 minutes or so, Roux pacing, Celby shrugging, while I cleaned the stalls facing pasture 1. Then I moved Sherman into Celby's empty stall to clean his stall, and moved Scarlett into Roux's to clean hers. This sent Roux into an excited pacing, which set Sherman off-- he thought it would certainly be good fun to get out there and run around with this big, excited red horse! So he started banging his stall door and jumping around.
Well, little Sherman is Uncle Celby's ward, so he saw Sherm get going, and thought Roux, with all her pacing, was trying to get to Sherman, and he decided to put a stop to it. He started chasing Roux with all his mean boss-hoss snarling face and pinned ears. He herded her back and forth, away from Sherman, away from the barn, and got her corralled in the opposite corner of the pasture.
And, wouldn't you know it, Roux settled down and actually gave him a coquettish pretty face. Once Celby said he was going to be the boss, and she could just knock that shit off, she knocked that shit off and felt safe with her big, strong, soon-to-be-boyfriend.
So we cleaned the rest of the stalls in peace & quiet and brought the old grumpy pair back in to their stalls to eat, drink, and be merry.
Once stalls were clean and horses all fed & watered with their "entertainment" hay & water, we talked a little about what to do with the new horse coming in. Still one stall short...
So, I suggested putting Diva (2) and Gem (3) into the double stall. These two are, like, totally, BFFs to the max -- inseperable in turnout, stalled next to one-another...they can barely wait to get out in the mornings to get back together-- that wooden barrier between them all night has been a horror to bear; they can't whisper and giggle and tell secrets to one another. Once turned out in the morning, they climb on each other and run off to do laps around the pasture and harrass the older horses. They're virtually siamese twins.
But they're too young to put in the Pony Paddock-- they'd test the fence and be in the road in no time.
So...I suggest we close the doors to the run-in double stall, and just make it a regular stall that these two share. That'd cut down on a lot of the wind whipping through that barn, which would make everyone a lot happier on a day like today, and it solves the stall shortage problem.
So, out comes our friend Dewalt, and we un-pin the huge barn doors on that stall, which have been tacked open since we set it up as a run-in, close them up, haul the barrier beams and supports for both sides of the doors, tack them in place, and convert the run-in double stall to a closed-in double stall. Viola.
Put the BFFs in there together, which they think is the absolute coolest; like a total Barbie sleepover party, and rearrange the other horses in their new stalls. One empty left-over stall for the mare-to-come. Job well done.
Tomorrow will be all about figuring out how to get the mare-to-come to our barn. She's coming up today from somewhere in the middle of PA to Wyalusing, and we have to get her from Wyalusing to our barn. But it's February, and the trailer has been frozen to the ground, not going anywhere, for at least six weeks. So...um...we're not sure we have transportation right now. We've got a couple of calls in to a couple of friends and boarders with, perhaps, heavier-duty 4WD truck & trailer setups to see who can get their rig out easiest and has time to do the hauling and when, but right now it's all up in the air
Oh, and BO has an all-day, off-site dressage clinic to give, so it's me and whoever is hauling, unless BO gets her clinic schedule changed. Whoopee...and so we roll with it, baby...
And I think I'm just beginning to feel my fingers again...
Saturday, January 31, 2009
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